How Romney’s Major Foreign Policy Deficit Is Being Covered (up)

Mitt Romney made a major foreign policy flub the other day. If we were talking about any other candidate, it would be a total disaster. But,it doesn’t matter with Mitt Romney. The right is so willing to pander to him, they are now as intellectually dishonest about propping him up as the left props up Obama. The MSM is not going to cover the story because they want Romney to be the nominee – to re-elect Obama in November.

Why?

THIS is what is going to happen this fall:

The Hill

“…“If you take a look at the world today, we have a lot of problems that are not leftovers from the past, but are of the moment,” Clinton said, pointing to Iran and its suspected nuclear development program as an example. “In many of the areas where we are working to solve problems, Russia has been an ally.”

Echoing those sentiments, Vice President Joe Biden also weighed in Sunday on Romney’s comments.

“Romney acts like he thinks the Cold War’s still on, Russia is still our major adversary. I don’t know where he’s been,” Biden said on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”

The vice president pointed to Russia’s cooperation in transmitting material to troops in Afghanistan, as well as its participation in sanctions against Iran.

“This is not 1956,” he added.

Responding to the barrage of attacks over his comments, Romney’s campaign put out a statement earlier in the week defending the candidate’s position on Russia.

“In contrast to President Obama, Governor Romney is clear-eyed about the geopolitical challenges Russia poses,” Romney policy director Lanhee Chen said in a statement. “Russia’s nuclear arsenal, its energy resources, its geographic position astride Europe and Asia, the veto it wields on the UN Security Council, and the creeping authoritarianism of its government make Russia a unique geopolitical problem that frustrates progress on numerous issues of vital concern to the United States.”…”

It’s one thing to have a Democrat who can’t figure out who the real enemy is, but when we have a Republican in this condition, we’re in really deep do-do – John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, Jimmy Carter, Barry Goldwater trouble. This is how you lose the White House, House and Senate. If our so-called GOP leaders don’t come out and start calling this charlatan’s bluff, we’re in very serious trouble as a party. Instead, like Marco Rubio, they are cheerfully standing in line – for the VP Nod.

“...White House press secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday took issue with comments from Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stating that Russia was America’s “number one geopolitical foe.” Carney, a former Moscow-based correspondent for TIME magazine, stated that “in a world where Al Qaeda is so clearly the preeminent threat to the United States, and similar organizations, it seems a little inaccurate to make that statement about Russia where Russia is a county that we have been able to cooperate with on very important issues even as we disagree with them on others and that includes missile defense and Syria.”

Romney had been responding to the comments President Obama made Monday to outgoing Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, unaware that a microphone was making the private remarks quite public.On issues, “particularly missile defense,” President Obama told Medvedev that incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin needed to give him “space.”“This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility,” the president said.
Medvedev said he would “transmit the information to Vladimir.”

Appearing on CNN, Romney said Russia “is without question our number one geopolitical foe. They fight every cause for the world’s worst actors. The idea that he has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very very troubling indeed.”

He noted that “Russia continues to support Syria, supports Iran, has fought us with crippling sanctions we wanted to have the world put in place against Iran. Russia is not a friendly character on the world stage and for this president to be looking for greater flexibility where he doesn’t have to answer to the American people in his relations with Russia is very very troubling, very alarming. This is a president who is telling us one thing and is doing something else.”…”

Reuters

The need to cast Russia as public enemy number one is nothing new for Romney.

“...The GOP front-runner has long suggested that the former Cold War adversary would be regarded by his administration as something closer to an enemy than a friend.

In his book, “No Apology,” Romney listed Russia as one of four powerful international actors — along with China, “the Jihadists” and the United States — that have competing strategies to control the direction of the 21st century.

“We are now obliged to be wary and vigilant once more, because by mid-century, our grandchildren may well view Russia with the same concern that we and our parents once did,” Romney wrote.

And in a December interview with RealClearPolitics, he asserted that Putin was aiming to return his country “to the glory days of the Soviet Union,” and he encouraged the Russian people to usher him out of office.

“I think his brand of democracy is not something we would recognize, and I hope the Russian people are able to find leaders that are more willing to represent the interests of the people,” Romney said.

The candidate’s most recent comments come as Russia has drawn international criticism this year for renouncing Western sanctions against Iran and for joining China in vetoing a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Syria’s violent crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Growing U.S. frustration with Russia has occasionally boiled over within the Obama administration, too. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month called Russia and China’s veto of the Syria resolution “despicable.”

“And I ask: Whose side are they on?” Clinton said. “They are clearly not on the side of the Syrian people.”

Such criticism has been more overt, and consistently uttered, among Republicans. ABC News reported on Wednesday that House Speaker John Boehner sent a letter to Obama saying that he was “alarmed” by the president’s message to Medvedev.

“It is increasingly evident that Russia is intent on expanding its boundaries and power through hostile acts — including invading a neighboring American ally,” Boehner wrote.

Romney’s repeated call to take a tougher line against Russia is one that has been especially popular in conservative foreign policy circles….”

TPM

If Joe Biden can pick him apart, we’re in serious you know what.

“…“Speaking of flexible, Gov. Romney is a pretty flexible guy on his positions,” Biden said. “But look, and by the way, I know a little bit about unguarded moments with microphones. But look, here [the] president just stated the obvious. The idea that in this election year, we’re going to be able to deal with an agreement with the Russians on further reducing our nuclear arsenals, and the environment that we have in the United States Congress now, is difficult. And what the President was doing is stating the obvious, that it’s going to be difficult.”

Biden also blasted Romney’s “Cold War mentality.”

“We’re going to have — we’re not going to the flexibility to sit down and talk with people in this Congress that are going to be able to listen and be able to work with this probably between now and Election Day,” he continued. “So — and the second thing is, Gov. Romney’s answer, I thought, was incredibly revealing. He acts like he thinks the Cold War is still on. Russia is still our major adversary. I don’t know where he has been. I mean, we have disagreements with Russia, but they’re united with us on Iran. The only way we’re getting one of only two ways we’re getting material into Afghanistan to our troops is through Russia. They’re working closely with us. They have just said to Europe, if there is an oil shutdown in any way in the Gulf, they’ll consider increasing oil supplies to Europe. That’s not — this is not 1956.”…”

Mitt Romney’s apparent disconnect from reality extends, evidently, to China as well as Russia.

NY Times

This is tragic, not only for the GOP, but the country. We cannot have a GOP nominee who is incapable of seeing what is going on in the world.

“…In the face of China’s strengths, and worries that the United States will be displaced from its premier position in the world, Washington is engaged in a host of activities, including stepped up spying by American planes and ships along China’s borders that anger the Chinese, particularly its military, Mr. Wang writes.

Promotion of human rights in China by American supported nongovernmental organizations are viewed as an effort to “Westernize” the country and directly undermine the Communist Party, a stance the party will not stand for, he says.

That China is increasingly confident that it will prevail in the long run against the United States is backed, in part, by Mr. Lieberthal’s appraisal of American policy toward China.

Mr. Lieberthal cites findings from American intelligence based on internal discussions among crucial Chinese officials that these officials assume “very much a zero-sum approach” when discussing issues directly and indirectly related to United States-China relations.

Because these are privileged communications not intended for public consumption, American officials interpret them to be “particularly revealing of China’s ‘real’ objectives,” Mr. Lieberthal writes.

In turn, American law enforcement officials see an alarming increase in Chinese counterespionage and cyberattacks against the United States that they have concluded are directed by the Chinese authorities to gather information of national interest.

At a seminar last week at Tsinghua University in Beijing, where Brookings finances a study center, Mr. Lieberthal said there was an increasing belief on both sides that the two countries would be “antagonistic in 15 years.”

That would mean major military expenditures by both countries to deter each other, and pushing other countries to take sides. “The worst case is that this could lead to actual armed conflict, although that is by no means a necessary consequence of mutual antagonism,” Mr. Lieberthal said in an interview….”

What is worse, Romney’s pandering followers and supporters are, once again refusing to acknowledge the obvious.

The GOP has always run strong national security candidates. It is a hallmark of the party. To have a light-weight, even if he is Mr. Perfect, is frightening. It is also not good for the nation as a whole. We need someone who comprehends of the reality of the world – today.

Mitt Romney is either delusional, incompetent, or doesn’t give a damn about anything but being elected. The Pink Flamingo fears it is the latter. He refuses to recognize the obvious: We are at war with Islamic extremism. We have a serious problem with China. We don’t have a serious problems with Russia.

What is going on here?

Why can’t Mitt’s supporters realize he is simply not capable of being POTUS. We have an incompetent man in office, now. We don’t need another. We all know Newt Gingrich is the only person for the job.

Instead the RNC is propping up Romney, ignoring the real enemy – China.

I guess this is fine, Romney made a fool of himself, and the fool running the RNC is going to prop him up, no matter what.

Post navigation

6 thoughts on “How Romney’s Major Foreign Policy Deficit Is Being Covered (up)”

“Russia continues to support Syria, supports Iran, has fought us with crippling sanctions we wanted to have the world put in place against Iran. Russia is not a friendly character on the world stage and for this president to be looking for greater flexibility where he doesn’t have to answer to the American people in his relations with Russia is very very troubling, very alarming. This is a president who is telling us one thing and is doing something else.” ~Mitt Romney

I’m a Romney supporter and I heartily approve the above message. I also approve of Reince Priebus.

By the way, how is Newt doing on those delegates? Last I heard the ‘incompetent, delusional, don’t-give-a-damn’ guy was kicking him in the Depends. When Newt endorses Mitt, it’ll be interesting to see the reaction from around the Hate Mitt galaxy.

The problem is the fact that Romney is completely out of touch with the latest information out of Stratfor. It appears Russian agents have been assisting Israel in their stealth war against Iran. Romney has an irrational dislike of Russia. He is not seeing the geopolitical reality of the problems we are going to have with China, and does not comprehend that Russia is involved in the same war on Islamic extremism as we are. You don’t turn a sort-of friend into an enemy to legitimize Romney’s incompetence.

Romney sees the China problem (the real ones, not the imagined ones) far clearer than any other GOP candidate and has talked extensively about it. And with China, a great part of the difficulty involves energy and our financial crisis which has become a huge nat’l security threat in its own right.

The Russians often assist in limited ways whenever their goals momentarily align with ours. It is not a matter of a child’s game of friend vs. enemy, but a matter of managing relationships, understanding the total picture and having long term goals in our national interest, backed by strength. Romney not only understands the big picture he has excellent advisers and a strategy to reestablish domestic and military strength – which must be linked.

Yet there are those whose idea of a brilliant chess move is to hand Barack Obama another four years in which to quadruple again the size of our government, stymie all growth/innovation/investment, and continue using our soldiers and allies as chattel in wicked global pursuits of unknown intent. This is not a rational or defensible choice.

Russia is a paper tiger. According to George Foreman of Stratfor, it will probably cease to exist as the country we know it, within the next 25 years. Their current moves are to protect their gas/oil interests. They control the natural gas going into Europe. That’s where their danger lies – the control they have with gas/oil for Europe, not for us. They have a very serious problem with hard core Islam within their own country.China is the real problem. Not Russia.

It is about oil/gas and Russia trying to make money of Europe’s financial disaster.

SJR

Comments are closed.

SJ Reidhead (aka The Pink Flamingo) is a writer based in New Mexico. The author of two published novels, both westerns: Dust Devil and The Second Mrs. Earp and two published works of non-fictions: TRAVESTY: Frank Waters Earp Agenda Exposed and A Church for Helldorado, Endicott Peabody's 1882 Tombstone Diary. One of the leading authorities on the life of Wyatt Earp and Tombstone during the Earp years, she is currently writing a series of murder mysteries set in modern day Tombstone. The author is also working on a book about fashion in the Wild West. When complete, there will be over 2100 unpublished antique photographs dating from 1855-1910.

The author's work has appeared in Wild West, True West, Blogcritics, and The Tombstone Times. Recently the author has had to deal with a father who succumbed to Alzheimer's Disease. This is leading to a book dealing with the frustrations of dealing with the frustrations of the disease, finance, legal, health-care, and things no one bothers telling families about it. She is currently working on a murder mystery series set in modern day Tombstone and Cochise County. Several books of essays on Christian living are currently in edits. A book of essays and revisions of articles about Wyatt Earp has been completed and will include her latest work detailing her theory about the murder of his second wife, Mattie.

SJ Reidhead has been involved in Republican politics since she was 'a little kid'. During the Reagan years she was a lobbyist working with various non-profit organizations who were attempting to salvage NASA and the American space program after the disastrous Carter years. In spite of ups and downs, and numerous disappointments, politically, it is obvious the only political hope for this country is via the Republican Party. Along with politics she is an opera fanatic, has been known to stalk baritones to the point of being a baritone junkie, and loves baseball.

The Pink Flamingo went on line on October 4, 2005.

THE PINK FLAMINGO STORY

It started out as a joke. During the seven years I worked with the girls of my parish, leading a youth group, one of the things that I stressed were manners. Part of having manners, the way I see it, is to know how to set a proper table, host a party, cater it, and clean up afterward. I was fortunate enough to have a group of very talented girls in my youth group. They learned how to plan for, and execute large church functions, very properly. During one such function I noticed there were several incredibly tacky pink flamingos sitting on the table. Knowing the girls were up to something, I said nothing. A few months later they did the same thing at a function I was hosting at my home. I said nothing. They had a birthday party for me. More pink flamingos appeared - and a joke was born.

Thanks to the girls, all of whom are now grown, I have a collection of pink flamingos. It has become an ongoing joke. When I began working on my political blog, I realized the only possibly title was The Pink Flamingo!